Communications networks are continually being adapted to best utilize the limited bandwidth available. While it is generally possible to add additional bandwidth to communications systems, the cost of doing so is sometimes prohibitive. Additionally, communications network utilization rates are typically unpredictable. This means that that they will go through periods where the available bandwidth is very high, but then also go through periods where the available bandwidth is not sufficient for the traffic.
This is especially true in networks when there is a widespread event which results in the creation of network traffic. For example, when there are natural disasters many of the communications networks which normally operate very reliably are overwhelmed by the increased traffic. A similar situation arises in the context of automated utility meter reading mesh networks. In these networks the widespread event can be a loss of service, such as a power outage. When there is a loss of power, it is generally experienced by a large number of houses and therefore, when the nodes of the network all attempt to report the outage, the network can be overloaded with a high level of traffic.
Designing a communications network to accommodate the peak level of communications traffic would assuredly result in a much higher cost to deploy the system. Additionally, after incurring the expense of deploying a network with the bandwidth to handle the peak load, much of that bandwidth would remain unused a high percentage of the time. Therefore, adding additional bandwidth by adding more communication lines is typically not an optimal solution.